THE GREEK ATTITUDE 



titatively the actions of atoms, and to found on this 

 atomic postulate the entire theory of the modern 

 sciences of physics and chemistry. 



Almost contemporaneously with the atomic theory 

 of Democritus two natural philosophers, Empedocles 

 and Anaxagoras, should be studied at some length, as 

 to them we owe the foundation of the sharply con- 

 trasted doctrine of a dualistic universe; that life is 

 not explainable by physical causes nor by substantial 

 elements, since the phenomena of the organic world 

 require us to postulate a hyperphysical or psychic 

 force. 



In a criticism of the philosophy of Thales, who was 

 held by some to believe that all things were filled 

 with gods, Aristotle expressly says that Anaxagoras 

 was the first to introduce the idea of a dualistic 

 philosophy.* He had, apparently, first sought for 

 mechanical causes, but having failed to find them 

 adequate, he then turned to the agency of a divine 

 reason, or world-ordering Mind, which he termed 

 nous. Instead of the primal substance of the earlier 

 natural philosophers which was changed into all the 

 various materials of the world by active principles 

 not clearly distinguished from the substance itself, 

 Anaxagoras supposed that there was an unlimited 

 number of primitive substances, or seeds as he called 

 them, which were arranged, but not transmuted, by 

 the nous to change chaos into the ordered world, 



^Meta., i, 3, 984 b. 



C 43 3 



